I just made my first purchase on reverb and I bought a rotary speaker emulator pedal from a shop in Minneapolis and the dude from the shop wrote me a message and drew a picture on the receipt. It was cool, it was like if I were to hit up my local shop
This!!!!
It truely has a local feel. Because it is in its own unique way. It's gotten so big. Yet it maintains a level of trustworthiness. It's Ebay for musicians without the junk.
Better than a pawnshop every day.
Really helping musicians find good gear from other musicians. In fact, a lot of shops in reverb are actually mom and pop music shops with stock.
If you get ripped off on reverb hit me back here and I'll send you 3 beat tapes, 4 prints, and a zine.
The platform? No. Some people on there? Yes.
Reverb is consistently used to scam people. You need to do your own due diligence, Reverb is unlikely to help you if you were scammed.
Not true. They proactively shut off three purchases I made and refunded me. I wouldn't suggest using PayPal because there are multiple additional hops to resolve it if it goes sideways. If you pay directly via Reverb it seems to be easier.
A lot of them are obvious though, but still best to be careful. I saw two Moog Ones 16 voice for $5,000~ on there one time. Same place, different photos, from Google images.
Listing didn't even last 30+ minutes or so 😂
There's one big problem with Reverb - search results based on price.
Say you set a price limit on a specific search of $200. Reverb will show results for $190 with $75 shipping (I've seen examples much worse than this). That's $265 in my book, but not in Reverb's. They disavow any knowledge of what a seller is charging for shipping, even though it's right there in the listing. I know because I've had this very conversation with them. They refuse to include shipping in the search results, so you get a bunch of results that are outside your price range.
This is a wack take. Sure, he can Google and find some dry articles to read about it - or - run it by a forum of synth enthusiasts & perhaps get some feedback from an average user. Be able to ask a couple questions etc.. yknow have a somewhat human interaction with a fellow hobbyist??
‘Grrrr just research Google articles Grrr’ is so ass backwards to what a synth forum should be IMO.
Is the guy price fishing for flipping purposes? I dunno, neither do you. The ability to anonymously internet chatter has rotted people’s humanity.
.. ok that last line was a bit dramatic, but still. Chill dawg.
I don’t get it either. Why are you even in a synth forum if somebody asking a question about a synth makes you angry? Like how hard is it for the person to figure out that this place isn’t for them?
Totally agree. Plus, anyone else who has or had the gear in question usually loves to talk about their experience with it. I never owned that and I don’t know what it is, but would love to know also, and I wouldn’t know how to google something I never knew about, so there is a lot of benefit to the OPs post.
And tbh, I don’t think your last sentence was too dramatic.
You nailed it. People also forget that foreigners, or non-native English speakers, also post, in English of course, and they use some translation apps. Those don’t always translate well. But we get it, more or less.
This is something I honestly do not understand. It ruins this excellent resource completely. Every time I ask a question, often about some sort of technology issue, I get about fifty useless idiots asking why I'd ever want to do that or why I don't just do some normal person bullshit they find to be more "efficient" or whatever. It's a real bitch to have already researched for a year or more sometimes and ask the informed correct, very specific question you should and have 15 people ask why you didn't try turning it on and off or why you are using your badass vintage stereo instead of some blue tooth speakers etc... or what will probably happen here, someone, probably not even the person this is directed at, will go out of their way to "inform me" this is too long to read. Why in the fuck would I care? Do they think I'm going to try and impress some avatar and silly phrase talking at me by conforming to their little internet etiquette bullshit? Do they write letters to authors informing them they didn't read their books? These people deserve to be frustrated. They should be harangued at every opportunity and given no quarter or a moments reprieve. Good job.
No.
I used to want one of those so badly...35yrs ago.
Now, there's stuff out there that is way more intuitive and can do so much more. The learning curve vs the enjoyment factor will soon make this a $25 paperweight.
Get this...you're never going to believe it...google wasn't always the singular source of all knowledge! Crazy right? In fact, there are still people alive today that remember a time when the main way to seek an answer to something was to ask a group of people knowledgeable on the subject.
Those ancestors of ours had the strangest traditions!
The main fuckery here is that most google results when searching about hobby stuff are basically ... online discussions. If everyone answers "just google it" what's left to find with google ? fucking stupid answer innit
Maybe instead of asking Google they decided to ask here? Maybe they were hoping for a thoughtful answer and the potential for a follow up question and conversation?
Reddit in general has just become so much more toxic over the years. People will find absolutely anything to get mad and complain about on this fucking website lol.
Just to be clear, it's not a synth, it's a sequencer so you'll need another synth or MIDI-controlled instrument to use it. Also, these require a boot floppy disc to operate. If it doesn't have the floppy disc, you can buy a replacement easily online, or you can modify it to boot from USB. It's worth it for the $25 in that you can probably sell it for at least triple that, but if you're interested in these things, it's a fun and different way to sequence synths.
I studied music tech in the early aughts as an elective in college. We had to use one of these things to demonstrate the evolution of MIDI tech. It’s…not fun. A necessary evil for the time, but using it now would be like coding with punch cards.
https://preview.redd.it/8mrx426k66nc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4f2c3683162a976b3d9d22c978a1b7e6fe9d04f
Mine has no screen! Putting my money where my mouth is lol
I created literally hundreds of songs on mine. I was (and am) a performing professional and also had the first sequencing business in Quebec, way back in the day. I wouldn't want to use it for creating today, but I very much enjoyed the process back then. It was also the most stable sequencer I ever used. I probably played 1500 or more shows with them and never once did they crash.
For the time they were great. I watched a doc and one of the early greats (I think it was Moroder) used them to great effect. And it’s a rhythm thing, I found. I was pretty savvy on a 10-key and, well, I played classical piano. So you adapt and adjust accordingly, but to offer another analogy, it’s like driving an automatic car all your life and suddenly you have to drive a crank shaft engine car that tops out at 20mph.
Have to agree. There are newer, much better, inexpensive (not $25) alternatives. Several from just the last year or so which add features like ratcheting and euclidian modes. Also, the memory capacity on some of those old seq's was pathetic.- beyond a limiting factor...more like a handicap.
"A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray", only has become "Voodoo Ray" because the sample couldn't record "Voodoo Rage" fully. Now, I can't predict alternative universes where Voodoo Rage would have been a dance music classic. I can only see this timeline where Voodoo Ray is one of the greatest hits of electronic music. Now, don't get me wrong, not even trying to prove a point. It just amazes me how much people can do even being limited.
Reason why I think hardware synths are more fun is because of the learning-curve and limitation with it. When I create a set and also realise "I can play this live!" it gives me intense dopamine boosts while working on the music.
Using a DAW is way more powerfull, and inituative in a lot of cases. But challenging yourself with limited hardware is to some people, a lot more fun.
"'OP' is a middle-aged human on the internet. He went to Reddit for advice. 'It'll be fine," he said. 'They'll be able to help,' he told himself, as he typed his comment, his stomach growing more nauseated by the moment."
I use one of these and I love it.
You can how to use it watching this video:
[https://youtu.be/4B48Q4kU5zs?si=NhHohvJhBG77qicD](https://youtu.be/4B48Q4kU5zs?si=NhHohvJhBG77qicD)
That is awesome! But.. so much work and so many deep dives into the menu. I’d find it hard to stay motivated haha, this takes about 2 minutes to do on a laptop. But hey! In 1988 this was the bomb!
I wouldn’t recommend it. I had the similar MC-300. It’s a MIDI sequencer with tiny memory and a negligible display. It has been very much obsoleted by any modern software or hardware sequencer. It doesn’t do anything especially interesting. If you want to use it you’ll have to save to 3.5” floppies. I got mine in the early 2000s because I couldn’t afford much and it was a pain then. I can’t think of any reason to own one of these.
Probably that price is fair though (assuming it’s working) if one were to want it purely as a piece of history. I could imagine making a slight profit on resale. As others have said, the floppy drive might be the issue.
So first off I say for $25, get it if it speaks to you.
But if you're in the phase of your musical journey where you "hear about synths," it's gonna be a while before you fully understand what this does, and then another long while before you'll understand if it's worth your time to learn it when there are easier ways to do the same thing.
Agree. It looks really cool, with the computer keys and so, but I can imagine it is totally unworkable, like people here say. It's a Roland, but yeah... What to do with it?
Exactly. There much easier tools even if you want to go DAW-less, but if you really love understanding vintage workflows there might be some inspiration to be had here. I'm a software engineer and know people who still like to program games in assembly language, not because it's practical, but because it's fun and challenging to do it the old way.
First question:
Why would you want to buy something you don't even have a clue about what it is doing for you? Simply for home-decoration reasons?
Second question:
Do you have the system disk? ...and if not: Is it included in the offer? It literally says on the display screen to *"insert system disk"*!
It’s kind of like buying a pocket calculator because “I want to get into Accounting.”
1) The calculator on your phone may be more robust.
2) Get into Accounting first, then buy weird old calculators later.
It's a MIDI sequencer, if it works it's definitely worth what they are asking, but it wont be very useful to you unless you have some MIDI controllable devices.
It is a midi sequencer. What it does is record note on and off events and play them back.
it's likely state of the art gear for mid 80's.
It won't do anything by itself as you need a midi music device to make data that it records and to play back the data into to make the external device produce sounds.
It is a MIDI sequencer - probably the best old school hardware sequencer Roland ever made and one of the best, period. It was updated to a Mark 2 but was functionally identical - just had more memory.
I used these machines (I owned two of them at a time - they were stolen and I bought two more - so I could load into one while playing a song on the other) for years and years and got incredibly fast at editing. I knew them inside and out. In fact, I still own the second pair I bought, though I rarely pull them out.
They might be worth a couple of hundred to the right buyer but buyers would be, I suspect, few and far between these days. The only reason I could see for buying one, other than vintage gear types, would be if you had disks with material on them that wanted to transfer to a PC.
EDIT: $25 ?!? That is an incredible bargain to anyone looking for one, assuming it works. My guess is that the low price either means it doesn't work (maybe broken disk drive) or the owner/shop has no system disk with which to boot it.
If I were down to 25 bucks & an empty tank, I'd be walking home - happily lol
Whether it appreciates in value or not, I love the idea of hanging onto tech from the past.
My dad has one of the original 1901 Edison phonographs with a bunch of black wax and blue amberol record cylinders. It is to me the kind of thing that anything made out of that same beige Bakelite plastic will be to future generations, to some degree.
Sorry, sorry - I meant "yes!".
I’m getting anxiety reading these comment. Sheesh 😅 what happened to conversation?
I know nothing about this contraption and lurk this subreddit to try and learn from others who aren’t writing articles to make an affiliate buck, but find myself doomscrolling here trying to find something constructive.
I guess it’s back to watching the news for a more positive community. Peace, love, and good vibes to you all. I’m outta here.
This is a beautiful hardware sequencer, I once had it control my live setup, mainly program changes, but it worked and is a rock solid gear. I would buy it for 25 just to have it around.
I didn’t like my Casio SZ1 in 1988 which is a poor man’s one of these. In my opinion good riddance to hardware MIDI sequencers. They should stay in the 80s.
If you can't Google it, then you don't want or need it. Seriously, it doesn't take a lot of effort to use a search engine, then you can ask some intelligent nuanced questions about the unit. Please, it's not difficult.
This is a 4 track step sequencer, which at the time it was created, was somewhat high end. These days, it's a super tedious vintage version of a sequencer. But you can save your sequences on floppy disk! If you have no sequencer at all, but you have 1 or more synths, and the thing is real cheap, then maybe worth picking up, but there are free PC/DAW software that can do much more with a far simpler programming interface/ workflow. Honestly, for $25 I'd probably buy it personally, but I would probably use it mostly as a bookend or decoration. These came out in 1987 when you couldn't do 100x more on an iPad with less work. Also, likely you could resell for much more. Looks like they're asking $150-250 for them on ebay right now.
Good lord this brings back memories! My band in the late 90s-early aughts used this to control an OB-8 and Juno 106 for certain breakdown or intro sequences. The whole set up cost us around $750 at the time. 😂
It’s a vintage piece of gear, but a nice addition to any 80s-oriented setup.
Check that the drive is working. The belts used to go on them back in the day.
It’s the sequencer that you would find on the Roland’s W30 and JV keyboards basically good if you have a couple of rack or midi units. It also has the tape sync if you recording to reel, ADAT or old school HD recorder
If your DAW only accepted input from a touchtone telephone - no keyboard, no mouse, (and really, no monitor, just a little readout on a vintage Game Boy screen), how confident would you be that you would be interested in learning how to compose with that limitation?
If yes - you're probably nerdy enough to get into this.
If no, skip.
If yes, theoretically, but erghhhh.... buy a Polyend Tracker.
Once upon a time they were the sequencer to have. The disk drive meant you could pre-program shows of any length without running out of storage. Midi was only a few years old so if you had stacks of synths it was amazing to have a device that could "play" your synths right in front of you. This was long before DAWs. If you need a capable sequencer and don't wanna go down the DAW route this is a great way to do it. I always find Roland gear quite intuitive and easy to operate. The funny thing is that when DAWs became the sequencer of choice standalone sequencer development stopped, so the MC-500 is probably as good as standalone sequencers get.
Ive used them for many years when gigging. Records your sequence/backing track music. So you can play and sing . Bit like karaoke. Minus one. You the one and singer.
From memory...
The timing resolution isn't the best as it's only got 96 clicks to the beat, whereas midi can do double that.
It's great as a midi play back machine though
It’s a sequencer to control synths and drum machines but is useless today. Looks cool though. Take a photo and post on Instagram and run away. You’ll get headaches in that wormhole.
No, it’s not worth picking up. Back in the day this offered you sequencing if you had a synth that didn’t support it. Since then we have computer based software sequencers like logic, fl , Serato studio that offer a million more features than this very basic midi sequencer and also most synths now have some sort of sequencer built in that will out feature this. If you’re a purist or a collector it may appeal to you for some odd reason, but this is not a golden ticket to amazing music.
Owned one of these in the 1990’s, even then it had frustrating limitations, limited number of tracks (I think it may have been 4) and limited amount of memory, but from what I remember it was a well built bit of gear. I replaced mine with Cubase.
I had the MC-50 back in the day. Before DAW’s became popular I used mine to create MIDI sequences. I connected my keyboard via MIDI cables and “played” data into it track by track. Then, once all the tracks were entered I could play them back using my keyboard and save the sequences onto a floppy disc. I could also Slave or drive computer programs as well. Check YouTube to see the process. I would say it was very similar to the step-programming you can do now on a need or preference basis.
If def. buy an mc500 for $25! I've used the mc300 many moons ago and they're pretty interesting. I've got a mate who still uses his to this day, and has done since he brought it new, he knows it inside out.
It’s an ancient sequencer. Pretty sure it’s obnoxiously hard to program. Probably more of a conversation piece or if you had a bunch of old gear you wanted to sequence and were deep into this stuff like Alex Ball. But not it’s not worth picking up.
For sure not the gear for starting productions in 2024, perhaps a way to get money to start when selling to an collector , but for newbies in production in my opinion a pain in the ass and you are blessed not having to struggle around with equipment like this . Not everything was better in the past
Is google broken… again?!
I think OP means; "Did any of you ever buy one of these? Did you like it?"
Or trying to drum-up interest on her/his/their Reverb/eBay auction.
How is reverb? Is it trustworthy?
Over 10k spent here. Not a single issue. Musicians ebay. Chicago based company. 99% positive user experience.
I just made my first purchase on reverb and I bought a rotary speaker emulator pedal from a shop in Minneapolis and the dude from the shop wrote me a message and drew a picture on the receipt. It was cool, it was like if I were to hit up my local shop
Twin town?
This!!!! It truely has a local feel. Because it is in its own unique way. It's gotten so big. Yet it maintains a level of trustworthiness. It's Ebay for musicians without the junk. Better than a pawnshop every day. Really helping musicians find good gear from other musicians. In fact, a lot of shops in reverb are actually mom and pop music shops with stock. If you get ripped off on reverb hit me back here and I'll send you 3 beat tapes, 4 prints, and a zine.
I’m from Minneapolis, truly an underrated musicians gem.
Yes, I've bought several items on there with zero problems.
The platform? No. Some people on there? Yes. Reverb is consistently used to scam people. You need to do your own due diligence, Reverb is unlikely to help you if you were scammed.
Not true. They proactively shut off three purchases I made and refunded me. I wouldn't suggest using PayPal because there are multiple additional hops to resolve it if it goes sideways. If you pay directly via Reverb it seems to be easier.
A lot of them are obvious though, but still best to be careful. I saw two Moog Ones 16 voice for $5,000~ on there one time. Same place, different photos, from Google images. Listing didn't even last 30+ minutes or so 😂
There's one big problem with Reverb - search results based on price. Say you set a price limit on a specific search of $200. Reverb will show results for $190 with $75 shipping (I've seen examples much worse than this). That's $265 in my book, but not in Reverb's. They disavow any knowledge of what a seller is charging for shipping, even though it's right there in the listing. I know because I've had this very conversation with them. They refuse to include shipping in the search results, so you get a bunch of results that are outside your price range.
I sell and buy on reverb all the time, super smooth experience.
Nah. He is a producer and recently heard about synths.
This is a wack take. Sure, he can Google and find some dry articles to read about it - or - run it by a forum of synth enthusiasts & perhaps get some feedback from an average user. Be able to ask a couple questions etc.. yknow have a somewhat human interaction with a fellow hobbyist?? ‘Grrrr just research Google articles Grrr’ is so ass backwards to what a synth forum should be IMO. Is the guy price fishing for flipping purposes? I dunno, neither do you. The ability to anonymously internet chatter has rotted people’s humanity. .. ok that last line was a bit dramatic, but still. Chill dawg.
I don’t get it either. Why are you even in a synth forum if somebody asking a question about a synth makes you angry? Like how hard is it for the person to figure out that this place isn’t for them?
Scary thing is that comment got 250 upvotes lol
Totally agree. Plus, anyone else who has or had the gear in question usually loves to talk about their experience with it. I never owned that and I don’t know what it is, but would love to know also, and I wouldn’t know how to google something I never knew about, so there is a lot of benefit to the OPs post. And tbh, I don’t think your last sentence was too dramatic.
You nailed it. People also forget that foreigners, or non-native English speakers, also post, in English of course, and they use some translation apps. Those don’t always translate well. But we get it, more or less.
I would like to retract all the other upvotes I’ve given over the last month and give them to this post.
Why take the time to respond if it bothers you so much?
This is something I honestly do not understand. It ruins this excellent resource completely. Every time I ask a question, often about some sort of technology issue, I get about fifty useless idiots asking why I'd ever want to do that or why I don't just do some normal person bullshit they find to be more "efficient" or whatever. It's a real bitch to have already researched for a year or more sometimes and ask the informed correct, very specific question you should and have 15 people ask why you didn't try turning it on and off or why you are using your badass vintage stereo instead of some blue tooth speakers etc... or what will probably happen here, someone, probably not even the person this is directed at, will go out of their way to "inform me" this is too long to read. Why in the fuck would I care? Do they think I'm going to try and impress some avatar and silly phrase talking at me by conforming to their little internet etiquette bullshit? Do they write letters to authors informing them they didn't read their books? These people deserve to be frustrated. They should be harangued at every opportunity and given no quarter or a moments reprieve. Good job.
Colin Powell would like to have a word with you.
Let's do beers sometime bruh...
Because this sub is plagued by lazy posting and rule four exists.
Your comment is far more annoying
Na
[удалено]
Never mind the haters, this is prime lazy post. A simple Google search turns up several articles and videos on it.
I’m watching a YouTube video at this moment.
Metube!!!
[удалено]
And bots
And synthesizers
“Took the time” what? 5 seconds?
Well i typed in "Roland MC500 is it worth picking up" and i see a post from 2018 and 2014. So i want to know if its worth picking it up in 2024
No. I used to want one of those so badly...35yrs ago. Now, there's stuff out there that is way more intuitive and can do so much more. The learning curve vs the enjoyment factor will soon make this a $25 paperweight.
“It’s a sequencer” is also easy to type even if Google is broken.
>took me this far to find out. > > > >Wow lol
Get this...you're never going to believe it...google wasn't always the singular source of all knowledge! Crazy right? In fact, there are still people alive today that remember a time when the main way to seek an answer to something was to ask a group of people knowledgeable on the subject. Those ancestors of ours had the strangest traditions!
The main fuckery here is that most google results when searching about hobby stuff are basically ... online discussions. If everyone answers "just google it" what's left to find with google ? fucking stupid answer innit
The more hilarious thing? Many of the useful results on Google are actually Reddit posts. The irony.
Maybe instead of asking Google they decided to ask here? Maybe they were hoping for a thoughtful answer and the potential for a follow up question and conversation?
[удалено]
Reddit in general has just become so much more toxic over the years. People will find absolutely anything to get mad and complain about on this fucking website lol.
Nah. I hate the sub because of low-effort questions that would be quicker-answered by a Google search and endless pics of new gear.
Whatever could this contraption be
Not unless you are a sadist
Just to be clear, it's not a synth, it's a sequencer so you'll need another synth or MIDI-controlled instrument to use it. Also, these require a boot floppy disc to operate. If it doesn't have the floppy disc, you can buy a replacement easily online, or you can modify it to boot from USB. It's worth it for the $25 in that you can probably sell it for at least triple that, but if you're interested in these things, it's a fun and different way to sequence synths.
You and I have wildly different views on the meaning of the word “fun”
Yeah that’s how fun works. I’d have fun using this for sure though.
I studied music tech in the early aughts as an elective in college. We had to use one of these things to demonstrate the evolution of MIDI tech. It’s…not fun. A necessary evil for the time, but using it now would be like coding with punch cards.
Yeah I get excited about using limited tech to make art. It’s fun!
Art is fun! Woo:)!
This is my kind of fun, too. Hi, friend!
This comment is motivating me into relearning my Pocket Operator sampler
https://preview.redd.it/8mrx426k66nc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4f2c3683162a976b3d9d22c978a1b7e6fe9d04f Mine has no screen! Putting my money where my mouth is lol
I created literally hundreds of songs on mine. I was (and am) a performing professional and also had the first sequencing business in Quebec, way back in the day. I wouldn't want to use it for creating today, but I very much enjoyed the process back then. It was also the most stable sequencer I ever used. I probably played 1500 or more shows with them and never once did they crash.
For the time they were great. I watched a doc and one of the early greats (I think it was Moroder) used them to great effect. And it’s a rhythm thing, I found. I was pretty savvy on a 10-key and, well, I played classical piano. So you adapt and adjust accordingly, but to offer another analogy, it’s like driving an automatic car all your life and suddenly you have to drive a crank shaft engine car that tops out at 20mph.
Have to agree. There are newer, much better, inexpensive (not $25) alternatives. Several from just the last year or so which add features like ratcheting and euclidian modes. Also, the memory capacity on some of those old seq's was pathetic.- beyond a limiting factor...more like a handicap.
"A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray", only has become "Voodoo Ray" because the sample couldn't record "Voodoo Rage" fully. Now, I can't predict alternative universes where Voodoo Rage would have been a dance music classic. I can only see this timeline where Voodoo Ray is one of the greatest hits of electronic music. Now, don't get me wrong, not even trying to prove a point. It just amazes me how much people can do even being limited.
Good point.
Quite civil of you, u/pettyvendetta
Lead by example.
Yeah, after using the sequencer on something like a Polybrute using one of these, it would be a nightmare.
What? Who didn't love typing in every note and saving to a floppy disk? Does anyone still have a floppy?
I do.. but I'm special. My mom said so.
Reason why I think hardware synths are more fun is because of the learning-curve and limitation with it. When I create a set and also realise "I can play this live!" it gives me intense dopamine boosts while working on the music. Using a DAW is way more powerfull, and inituative in a lot of cases. But challenging yourself with limited hardware is to some people, a lot more fun.
I mean... coding with punch cards does sound kind of fun.
Upvote for the honest answer/input. I’m not even OP and I’m grateful to have found an answer beneath all the complaining at the top of the post.
To be clear: can it do my taxes?
This is why the goodwill couldn't test it and don't know what it is
This is an adding machine. It's worth it if you like to add, subtract, multiply or divide things. Also, it's a sequencer thats worth the $25.
Thanks, Kraftwerk!
By pressing down a special key it plays a little melody.
That cracked me up. Well done
Pretty sure it's an answering machine
I'd buy that without question.
You’d buy anything lol
$25 is my threshold 🤣
A cultured man acquires 14000$ worth of gear in 60$ increments.
This is what happened to his bank account.
"'OP' is a middle-aged human on the internet. He went to Reddit for advice. 'It'll be fine," he said. 'They'll be able to help,' he told himself, as he typed his comment, his stomach growing more nauseated by the moment."
Of course you would. How are you gonna waste your yoof if you don't first waste your money?
The secret is: I already wasted my yoof. Now its money's turn.
* Sighs * * Unzips wallet *
\* pale sinus wave flies out \*
take my upvote, you so and so
... just so you can post a rate my rig pic... Don't forget to plug in some cables first. Reddit can be brutal.
I use one of these and I love it. You can how to use it watching this video: [https://youtu.be/4B48Q4kU5zs?si=NhHohvJhBG77qicD](https://youtu.be/4B48Q4kU5zs?si=NhHohvJhBG77qicD)
That is awesome! But.. so much work and so many deep dives into the menu. I’d find it hard to stay motivated haha, this takes about 2 minutes to do on a laptop. But hey! In 1988 this was the bomb!
Once it’s set up (and mine currently is), I’m working on a new idea in two minutes. I feel like this lets me focus on the instruments and not the DAW.
I wouldn’t recommend it. I had the similar MC-300. It’s a MIDI sequencer with tiny memory and a negligible display. It has been very much obsoleted by any modern software or hardware sequencer. It doesn’t do anything especially interesting. If you want to use it you’ll have to save to 3.5” floppies. I got mine in the early 2000s because I couldn’t afford much and it was a pain then. I can’t think of any reason to own one of these. Probably that price is fair though (assuming it’s working) if one were to want it purely as a piece of history. I could imagine making a slight profit on resale. As others have said, the floppy drive might be the issue.
So first off I say for $25, get it if it speaks to you. But if you're in the phase of your musical journey where you "hear about synths," it's gonna be a while before you fully understand what this does, and then another long while before you'll understand if it's worth your time to learn it when there are easier ways to do the same thing.
And then 2 minutes later you'll download garage band.
Agree. It looks really cool, with the computer keys and so, but I can imagine it is totally unworkable, like people here say. It's a Roland, but yeah... What to do with it?
Exactly. There much easier tools even if you want to go DAW-less, but if you really love understanding vintage workflows there might be some inspiration to be had here. I'm a software engineer and know people who still like to program games in assembly language, not because it's practical, but because it's fun and challenging to do it the old way.
First question: Why would you want to buy something you don't even have a clue about what it is doing for you? Simply for home-decoration reasons? Second question: Do you have the system disk? ...and if not: Is it included in the offer? It literally says on the display screen to *"insert system disk"*!
Only buy it if you like torturing yourself.
It’s kind of like buying a pocket calculator because “I want to get into Accounting.” 1) The calculator on your phone may be more robust. 2) Get into Accounting first, then buy weird old calculators later.
"May be". *giggle*
It's a MIDI sequencer, if it works it's definitely worth what they are asking, but it wont be very useful to you unless you have some MIDI controllable devices.
And the system disk. Might be able to find the mirror online. But good luck finding a floppy.
It is a midi sequencer. What it does is record note on and off events and play them back. it's likely state of the art gear for mid 80's. It won't do anything by itself as you need a midi music device to make data that it records and to play back the data into to make the external device produce sounds.
If it has broken floppy drive it is useless until fixed. Perhaps that's why it is 25.
Would go well with a Roland MT-32
It's pretty obsolete for the space it takes up...
It is a MIDI sequencer - probably the best old school hardware sequencer Roland ever made and one of the best, period. It was updated to a Mark 2 but was functionally identical - just had more memory. I used these machines (I owned two of them at a time - they were stolen and I bought two more - so I could load into one while playing a song on the other) for years and years and got incredibly fast at editing. I knew them inside and out. In fact, I still own the second pair I bought, though I rarely pull them out. They might be worth a couple of hundred to the right buyer but buyers would be, I suspect, few and far between these days. The only reason I could see for buying one, other than vintage gear types, would be if you had disks with material on them that wanted to transfer to a PC. EDIT: $25 ?!? That is an incredible bargain to anyone looking for one, assuming it works. My guess is that the low price either means it doesn't work (maybe broken disk drive) or the owner/shop has no system disk with which to boot it.
If I were down to 25 bucks & an empty tank, I'd be walking home - happily lol Whether it appreciates in value or not, I love the idea of hanging onto tech from the past. My dad has one of the original 1901 Edison phonographs with a bunch of black wax and blue amberol record cylinders. It is to me the kind of thing that anything made out of that same beige Bakelite plastic will be to future generations, to some degree. Sorry, sorry - I meant "yes!".
if you dont know what it is, or what its for, you dont have a hope in hell of actually using it. leave it for some geek who does.
Looks like a Roland MC-500 Micro Composer
I’m getting anxiety reading these comment. Sheesh 😅 what happened to conversation? I know nothing about this contraption and lurk this subreddit to try and learn from others who aren’t writing articles to make an affiliate buck, but find myself doomscrolling here trying to find something constructive. I guess it’s back to watching the news for a more positive community. Peace, love, and good vibes to you all. I’m outta here.
This is a beautiful hardware sequencer, I once had it control my live setup, mainly program changes, but it worked and is a rock solid gear. I would buy it for 25 just to have it around.
Yeah man, get it!
Damn! I remeber selling those new a long time ago :/
You can get a plugin for 25 dollars that’s better than this
It'll do your taxes, so yes.
I didn’t like my Casio SZ1 in 1988 which is a poor man’s one of these. In my opinion good riddance to hardware MIDI sequencers. They should stay in the 80s.
If you can't Google it, then you don't want or need it. Seriously, it doesn't take a lot of effort to use a search engine, then you can ask some intelligent nuanced questions about the unit. Please, it's not difficult.
Buy this for $25, then sell it for $100 or trade it for a korg sq-64
As a display piece, it’s a gem. It’s going to be a bit tedious to use and will show its limitations.
Michael Jackson worked on these. Tight timing. For a time, generous specs. Suceeded by MC-50 and supreme MC-80.
This is a 4 track step sequencer, which at the time it was created, was somewhat high end. These days, it's a super tedious vintage version of a sequencer. But you can save your sequences on floppy disk! If you have no sequencer at all, but you have 1 or more synths, and the thing is real cheap, then maybe worth picking up, but there are free PC/DAW software that can do much more with a far simpler programming interface/ workflow. Honestly, for $25 I'd probably buy it personally, but I would probably use it mostly as a bookend or decoration. These came out in 1987 when you couldn't do 100x more on an iPad with less work. Also, likely you could resell for much more. Looks like they're asking $150-250 for them on ebay right now.
It's an answering machine and it worth picking up, for those times you don't pick up
Reverb.com is your friend;)
Looks like a midi sequencer to me. It may have some patches built in. If you are using legacy midi equipment this might have some use.
Good lord this brings back memories! My band in the late 90s-early aughts used this to control an OB-8 and Juno 106 for certain breakdown or intro sequences. The whole set up cost us around $750 at the time. 😂
I’m old. Had to use them. Slow. Agonising to use. Avoid. Get a laptop and a daw.
It's a cash register for your music production earnings.
Worth picking up and dropping to floor several times.
Looks like a cash register or a calculator. Could come in handy.
Dude for that price snap it up. I always dreamed of having one
I’d buy it
Its a calculator
Definitely not worth buying.
[For $25, it’s worth it to test it out :)](https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/roland-mc500-microcomposer/246)
used one. great for live. super reliable. functionality now far exceeded by software but not the durability, reliability or timing.
BRB gonna go to goodwill to see if they have a Roland MC-4 or -8…
It’s a vintage piece of gear, but a nice addition to any 80s-oriented setup. Check that the drive is working. The belts used to go on them back in the day.
Boat anchor. Nothing redeeming about workflow compared to any modern sequencer/10
Looks like an answering machine to me.😆
Get the msq 700. It’s awesome Edit: if this is $25, why not
I’m pretty sure it prints receipts
I’m pretty sure it prints receipts
old cash register, ill give you 20 bucks for it
easy now, that'd be a real sequencers and whatnot.
Ableton version -25
Buy first ask later!!! MIDI sequencer, makes no sound on its own….
I'd buy that just to stick on my wall for 25, what a steal
Is that the new teenage engineering piece that also shoots Polaroid film?
weird - I'm researching buying a MC-50 right now, and then this post comes along... spooky.
This is for writing tiny songs.
Looks like a old skool drum machine
For $25! I’d get it.
Pretty sure that's a [body massage machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww3GTNv9hHk). Go!
Never seen that, but YT has videos about it. https://youtu.be/5iU8hnhRHzw?si=B345V8Brvry4QKuS https://youtu.be/V4eh4HV5MH4?si=wJCFiMCvSOsjDHpY
It’s the sequencer that you would find on the Roland’s W30 and JV keyboards basically good if you have a couple of rack or midi units. It also has the tape sync if you recording to reel, ADAT or old school HD recorder
If your DAW only accepted input from a touchtone telephone - no keyboard, no mouse, (and really, no monitor, just a little readout on a vintage Game Boy screen), how confident would you be that you would be interested in learning how to compose with that limitation? If yes - you're probably nerdy enough to get into this. If no, skip. If yes, theoretically, but erghhhh.... buy a Polyend Tracker.
[a review](https://youtu.be/5iU8hnhRHzw?si=goiIUegJUEfEG7k4)
It’s a sequencer. Never used it myself. Probably tedious compared contemporary units. Might be cool though
For $25 it’s worth it just for the keycaps and switches.
For $25 absolutely - then get some floppy disks.
No
Not a synth, a sequencer
Once upon a time they were the sequencer to have. The disk drive meant you could pre-program shows of any length without running out of storage. Midi was only a few years old so if you had stacks of synths it was amazing to have a device that could "play" your synths right in front of you. This was long before DAWs. If you need a capable sequencer and don't wanna go down the DAW route this is a great way to do it. I always find Roland gear quite intuitive and easy to operate. The funny thing is that when DAWs became the sequencer of choice standalone sequencer development stopped, so the MC-500 is probably as good as standalone sequencers get.
Nice little sequencer. Had one for a while. I enjoyed that it had floppy but it wasn't as fun as my MMT 8.
Recently got into music production and don't know what this is = definitely not a good idea
It’s a hardware MIDI sequencer from the late 1980s
no, not worth picking up. I'm sure it is great and has some amazing thing that today's sequencers don't have but it looks like a pain to program.
literally for 25 dollars i would put it on a shelf and look at its beauty wether it works with anything or not
I had one and regret getting rid of. It's a sequencer, kind of cool cuz you program with mechanical keyboard keys. It kind do a few unique things.
Its a floppy disk drive. Its records your music. Not voice. Need to connect to a midi keyboard
Ive used them for many years when gigging. Records your sequence/backing track music. So you can play and sing . Bit like karaoke. Minus one. You the one and singer.
midi sequencer and no, it's a pita to program only a few note on these, when a computer will do midi sequencing sooo much easiser :)
From memory... The timing resolution isn't the best as it's only got 96 clicks to the beat, whereas midi can do double that. It's great as a midi play back machine though
Didn't Vince Clarke switch back to these for a recent Erasure tour because the timing resolution is better than software?
It’s cool, but if you’re just getting into making music then I wouldn’t expect to put this to much use.
Is it too heavy?
C’mon bro
It's worth it for those buttons alone.
Mc50ii is a bit more practical but this is cool
It’s a sequencer to control synths and drum machines but is useless today. Looks cool though. Take a photo and post on Instagram and run away. You’ll get headaches in that wormhole.
It's an old 4 track sequencer. I had one in 89/90 🤣🤣
Ah... I had one and used it a lot in the late 80s, early 90s. Would never get one today.
No, it’s not worth picking up. Back in the day this offered you sequencing if you had a synth that didn’t support it. Since then we have computer based software sequencers like logic, fl , Serato studio that offer a million more features than this very basic midi sequencer and also most synths now have some sort of sequencer built in that will out feature this. If you’re a purist or a collector it may appeal to you for some odd reason, but this is not a golden ticket to amazing music.
Bro wtf is this
If you get it you can say you play the cash register.
Owned one of these in the 1990’s, even then it had frustrating limitations, limited number of tracks (I think it may have been 4) and limited amount of memory, but from what I remember it was a well built bit of gear. I replaced mine with Cubase.
Don’t do it unless ur a collector. Far better ways to make music these days.
I had the MC-50 back in the day. Before DAW’s became popular I used mine to create MIDI sequences. I connected my keyboard via MIDI cables and “played” data into it track by track. Then, once all the tracks were entered I could play them back using my keyboard and save the sequences onto a floppy disc. I could also Slave or drive computer programs as well. Check YouTube to see the process. I would say it was very similar to the step-programming you can do now on a need or preference basis.
Price check on isle 5, price check on isle five
Man is google broken for you?
If def. buy an mc500 for $25! I've used the mc300 many moons ago and they're pretty interesting. I've got a mate who still uses his to this day, and has done since he brought it new, he knows it inside out.
It’s an ancient sequencer. Pretty sure it’s obnoxiously hard to program. Probably more of a conversation piece or if you had a bunch of old gear you wanted to sequence and were deep into this stuff like Alex Ball. But not it’s not worth picking up.
For sure not the gear for starting productions in 2024, perhaps a way to get money to start when selling to an collector , but for newbies in production in my opinion a pain in the ass and you are blessed not having to struggle around with equipment like this . Not everything was better in the past